Regional tensions have reinforced a reality many organizations are now confronting: disruption is no longer an exception. It is the operating environment. Alongside these events, enterprises in the UAE and the wider region have experienced cyber incidents that directly tested operational resilience, recovery readiness, and leadership decision making.

The response is visible in investment priorities. According to IDC, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are sharply accelerating cybersecurity investment across the region. Cybersecurity ranks as the second-highest IT investment priority in the UAE, with budgets flowing into both new security initiatives and AI-driven security enhancements.

This closed-door‑ executive forum, hosted by IBM in collaboration with IDC, brings together C-suite‑ leaders and senior security executives to explore cyber resilience as a strategic business capability, not just a technical function. The discussion will focus on how organizations can maintain business continuity and trust amid escalating regional risks, increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, and rapid adoption of AI across core business operations.

A central theme of the session will be resilience by design: Designing AI systems that are secure, governable, and resilient from inception. Understanding how AI is being weaponized by adversaries to increase scale, speed, and impact. Leveraging AI to strengthen cyber defense, accelerate recovery, and improve decision‑making under pressure.

Anchored in IDC’s independent market research and IBM’s global threat intelligence, the forum will provide leaders with practical perspectives on embedding resilience into security, AI, and operating models—to ensure organizations can withstand disruption, recover faster, and continue to innovate safely.